osc as a site for dealers only - mod_auth_mysql ?

[spaceman]

Hi All,

 

I'm looking into using oscommerce as a site for dealers / wholesalers of a product line, as opposed to using it for the retail market.

 

As such, I'd like to show only very limited information on the home page, and require that a user (ie. dealer) has to login before they can see any more product info or make any purchases in the /catalog section.

 

So the plan is to design our own home page at www.xyz.com/index.php with limited product info on display, sourced from the oscommerce db. It'll have an option to 'click here to login and enter dealer catalog'.

 

To achieve this effect, the 2 possible solutions we can think of are:

 

1. Re-work the existing oscommerce login code to require login at the first opportunity - before the normal catalog info is viewable. If any attempt is made to go directly to any other page other than /catalog/index.php then the user will be redirected or otherwise required to login first before continuing. Has anyone done this, or perhaps there is a module already out there that handles this 'stricter' login requirement?

 

OR

 

2. Use mod_auth_mysql so that when the dealer clicks to move to the /catalog directory, the entire directory and all sub-dirs is protected by a .htaccess file talking directly to the oscommerce mysql db. The challenge here is in making sure that if mod_auth_mysql authentication is successful, then the username and password supplied are then fed straight into the 'normal' oscommerce login procedure in such a way that it occurs transparently to the person who is logging.

 

- Does anyone have any experience with this particular issue?

- Does either of the two solutions outlined above make more sense to attempt? Any pitfalls/drawbacks?

- Are there any other solutions to the same problem that I've overlooked?

 

Thanks v. much for you help and feedback.

[mouflon]

I'm using the Customer Account Number http://www.oscommerce.com/community/contributions,939 contribution for one of my sites, a chemical product wholesaler, and have just thrown a few bits of code around that check for the presence of an account number (this site won't use reviews, new products, upcoming products, or featured products, so I've only had to modify products_info.php), and if there is one, then the browser can see prices, extended product information, etc.

 

There are other ways, too - using Customer Status or Linda's Quantity Controller V5.1.

 

The reason I'm using Customer Account Number is that I'm using it to control access to attributes, so I can have the equivalent of Seperate Pricing per Customer, but using attributes and attribute pricing.

[Guest]

Im working in the same company as the origional poster, & am working on theis project. If anyone knows of a module which will add the ability to the admin section to add and delete customers, which is it??. also to disable on the front end would be good.